Correspondences
by thirdbird
Summary: Christmas, 2005: A consulting detective overdoses on cocaine at a bar in London, and his life is saved by an army doctor who happens to be home on leave for the holidays. (John/Sherlock alternate meeting AU. First chapter is gen, romance develops in subsequent parts. Originally published in 2011.)
1. Fairytale of London

_- London, 24 December, 2004 _

He should have known better, John thinks, than to make plans to meet his sister in a pub on Christmas Eve.

There's been no sign of Harry all evening, and she's not answering her phone. Met some more interesting friends on the way, no doubt. Stopped for a drink or six, stood him up, forgot, passed out. It's happened more times than John cares to remember.

At least it had got him out of his hotel room for the evening, but then again, probably nothing could be more depressing than getting stood up in a dive like this on a public holiday. The young kids in their ironic punk gear all cleared out ages ago, and the likely-looking singles have all paired up and gone off to...pair up. Hardly anyone's left at this hour except the really seasoned old drunks, slumped morosely over their drinks. And then there's the obligatory pub bore at the other end of the bar who won't shut up. One more beer, John decides, and he'll call it a night. Tomorrow's his last full day of leave but one, and he doesn't particularly want to spend it with a hangover.

He hopes Harry _doesn't_ turn up now. She'll be wrecked, and he'll spend the rest of the night forcing glasses of water into her and holding her head over the toilet, gritting his teeth through yet another drunken sobbing monologue about what a wonderful brother he is. John shudders. He should leave right away, probably, on the off chance. It's still snowing out there, though, and there's no chance of getting a cab tonight; it'll be a long, cold walk back to his bed. He changes his mind and orders a whisky instead of the beer. He'll gulp it down and go.

The annoying bore is really getting warmed up now, rattling on with some high-pitched giggly anecdote about...blood types? John could swear he heard the word "haemoglobin." He glances over surreptitiously to see who's got stuck talking to him, and isn't surprised to find that Mr. Annoying is conversing with no one, or possibly addressing the room at large. There are empty bar stools on either side of him, as if everyone nearby is giving him a wide berth. Wise of them, with the way he's gesticulating wildly as he speaks. Long-fingered, well-manicured hands. Nice suit. Posh. John briefly wonders what his story is, but decides he almost certainly doesn't want to know.

Just before he looks away, the man's pale eyes meet his and connect for an instant too long. John swears silently to himself and turns his attention back down to his drink, but it's too late, of course.

"_You'll_ agree it's a brilliant idea," a voice at his shoulder says a few moments later, and John's too polite to pretend he doesn't realise he's being addressed directly. Not too polite to avoid getting sucked into conversation, though.

He lifts his chin in noncommittal acknowledgment and then knocks back the rest of his drink all at once, which makes him wince and bare his teeth. "I'm off," he says. "Cheers."

"Oh, stay for another. I'm buying."

John looks again, reflexively. All night he's been sitting here, unable to get anyone to respond to his halfhearted attempts to chat them up, and now he has to pull a drunken head case?

Not a bad-looking drunken head case, honestly. Interesting, even, in a pale, offbeat, cheekbony sort of way. Even so.

"No, thanks." John gets up to leave. "Nice of you to offer, but no." He'd add something about the fact that this bloke should really call it a night, too, but he doesn't want to risk being misinterpreted. Better to leave well alone.

He has to go to the loo before he takes off, though, and just as he's zipping back up, the door of the Gents' squeaks open behind him.

"Hello again."

John ignores him this time and heads to the sinks. He dares a glance up in the mirror and finds that the stranger is leaning against the wall, openly staring at him. "Sorry, not interested," John tells him.

"Oh, this isn't one of those. I was just hoping to continue the conversation. You're obviously the only person on the premises who might possibly begin to understand even a fraction of what I'm saying. Such a waste, because it really is extremely fascinating, could change the face of forensic science permanently. You overheard a bit of it; I saw you. Naturally, with your medical training, you'd-"

"What?" John stops drying his hands and turns around. "Who told you that?"

The posh bloke just smiles-smirks, even-and goes jabbering on about bloodstains and reagents, and John finally realises that he isn't just drunk, he's high on something. _Really _high. In the unforgiving light of the toilets he looks horrifically bad, milk-pale and sweating, the pupils of his strange eyes nearly blown to black. He's talking faster and faster as if he can't stop himself, babbling almost incoherently now.

"You should go home," John says, interrupting the rapid-fire lecture. "Have you got a lift? Not that I'm offering," he adds hastily. "I mean, is there someone you can call? You can borrow my phone if you need to." He fishes it from his pocket and holds it out.

The man looks down at the phone and begins to laugh-softly, at first, then hysterically, uncontrollably, hanging on to the row of sinks. He shakes his head, gasps for breath, then holds his chest, still laughing, apparently unable to stop.

Alarm bells are going off all over John's mind. He jams his phone back into his pocket and strides over to the man, grabbing him by the shoulders and shoving him up against the wall so he can get a better look. He's all but vibrating, burning with unnatural heat that radiates right through his clothes. A human furnace about to blow. "What are you on? Cocaine?"

He can't respond, he's hyperventilating, but John can see the answer written all over his face: raw red nostrils, watery pink-rimmed eyes which are beginning to go wide and vague with oxygen deprivation now. How stupid not to have seen it before-he's even got streaks of powder on one of his jacket lapels. "Idiot!" John says angrily, and rips his collar aside to find the carotid pulse with two unerring fingers.

There's a pause of approximately six seconds while John's mind goes absolutely calm and blank as if all the air's been sucked out of it. Then the world comes roaring back and he's already got his phone out again, dialing 999.

"Ambulance," he tells the operator, and gives the name and address of the pub. "White male, mid-twenties, cocaine OD. Tachycardia, severe hyperthermia-" The white male in question is still pinned to the wall and struggling against John's grip, starting to thrash as he tries to get more air. A sharp elbow smacks John's hand and he drops the phone, but he's got the crucial information out, anyway.

"Chest pain?" he asks, and gets a panicky nod. John reaches over and turns on the cold-water tap-lukewarm, no good-then seizes the bloke by the biceps and hauls him toward the door, half drags him out into the hallway and kicks open the emergency exit. The sound of the alarm going off synthesises perfectly with the stab of freezing air that hits his lungs, and he feels almost giddy as he shoves his patient down into the freshly-fallen snow that coats the alleyway.

The young man sucks in a great noisy gulp of air and continues to struggle while John holds him down in the snow. He still can't speak, but his eyes look shocked.

"Bloody-lie still!" John snaps. "I'm trying to stop you going into cardiac arrest. Tachycardia, hyperthemia-you seem to know a lot of big words; ever hear those ones before?" He's ripping open the designer suit jacket and the shirt beneath while he speaks, piling handfuls of snow directly onto shivering blue-white skin. Suddenly the long limbs stop flailing and go rigid. _Seizing, fuck,_ John thinks. _Too late, I should have-_

"Oi, you, get off him!" he hears a voice shout from the open door behind them, and then there are hands trying to pull him away. He shakes them off, trying to explain. No one listens. There are more hands dragging him back, heavy, insistent, and a warm roar of beer-scented voices. Someone shouts "Call for an ambulance!" but the siren is already audible now, first in the distance, then getting closer, louder.

There are two broad-backed men bending over the body on the ground, obstructing his view, but John catches a glimpse of the high-cheekboned face with a shocking smear of bright red above the upper lip now, eyes wide and staring, sightless. _Too late,_ he thinks again, as the flashing lights and the noise of the siren overwhelm everything else and the shouting and confusion increases tenfold. _How stupid, stupid, stupid._ He doesn't know if he means himself or the idiot dead bloke, who he's going to have to remember every Christmas Eve of his life forever from now on, probably.

Or maybe he means Harry. Stupid Harry. All her fault, as usual.

The bloke doesn't die. John wakes up in his shabby hotel room late Christmas afternoon to find his phone blinking with seven new voice messages: six from Harry (in various states of remorse, irritation, and concern as her hangover progresses) and one from a posher-than-posh voice asking him to please return the call at his earliest convenience "regarding the matter of last night."

He's nervous about this at first. The overdosing man had stabilised by the time John had finally answered the ninth or tenth round of questioning and been allowed to leave the hospital early that morning, but you never knew. The caller, who hadn't identified himself by name, sounded like the brother, the one who'd shown up at A&E in a three-piece suit at three in the morning looking preternaturally calm and collected. Exhausted as he was, John's chin had gone up and his shoulders had straightened automatically when the man's eyes had fallen on him.

When he calls the number on his voicemail, he's more than half expecting to be coldly informed that legal proceedings have been initiated, or asked for the name of his CO. Instead, a young woman's voice answers the phone, tells him to hold, and returns several minutes later to inform him in a bored manner that he's been asked to report to St Thomas's Hospital the day after tomorrow during visiting hours, if he's available. "You're not in trouble," she tells him, when John begins to stammer. "Mr. Holmes would like to thank you personally for the service you rendered. That's all." She hangs up.

She doesn't say which Mr. Holmes she means.

There's no sign of the brother when John shows up at the hospital, holdall in hand, and signs the visitors' log at the front desk. No sign of any parents or mates once he gets out of the lift and finds the right ward, either, just a glossy-looking young blonde perched on a chair outside the unmarked door he's been directed to. She's typing into her phone, and barely glances at John before waving him towards the half-open door. "Leave that out here," she says in the same bored voice she used on the phone.

"I'm sorry?"

She points to his holdall without looking up.

"Oh." John drops his bag, clears his throat, hesitates, and knocks lightly on the door. When there's no answer, he says "Hello?" and looks in.

It's a large room, and private, which raises John's eyebrows. The figure in the bed has his face turned away from him. Asleep, John thinks, but then there's a restless twitch and a sigh.

"Well, come in then, if you're going to. And shut the sodding door."

John does, and approaches the bed. The man in it still doesn't look over at him. He's hooked up to a monitor and an IV drip, and John studies them and the notes on his chart without really meaning to, the way a librarian will automatically peruse your bookshelves and make mental notes on the organising principles of your collection upon being shown into your house. He stops himself as soon as he realises he's doing it and turns his attention back to the patient himself, who is glaring at him now, sharp-eyed despite the impressive cocktail of medications he's being given.

He's been put in wrist restraints, John notices suddenly.

"John Watson," he says, trying to cover his awkwardness with an introduction. "Sorry, you wouldn't remember, of course, but I was- I was there, the other night, it was me who-"

"Of course I remember. Well? Why are you here? Did my brother put you up to this? I suppose he thinks I ought to thank you."

John blinks. He's not sure what he expected, coming here. He's not even sure why he came, except that it had seemed like an order and he isn't used to refusing orders, even when they result in personal embarrassment. And he'd been a bit curious, perhaps.

"You probably should thank me," he says. "I don't care if you do or not, though. In fact I'd just as soon you didn't."

"Gets tiresome, does it, with all the lives you save? Saving lives for Queen and country-now there's a noble pursuit. You must be terribly proud of yourself, even without the random acts of heroism during leave."

John gives a surprised laugh. He's not shocked that Holmes was able to find out his occupation-the information is on the paperwork from the other night, surely-but the attitude is too absurd; he's never met anyone so instantly combative in his life. No one who didn't have a large weapon pointed at him, anyway. He licks his lips and tries to think how to respond.

"Right," he says finally. "Well. Glad to see you're on the mend. Happy Christmas, and...better luck stupidly throwing away your life next time, I suppose." He turns to go, but the petulant voice stops him before he gets to the door.

"You know absolutely nothing about my life."

"No." John turns back, smiling pleasantly. "Not really, no. Just that you're an idiot."

A disbelieving laugh. "An idiot. Really."

"Mm," John agrees. "I'd say so, yes. Good morning."

His hand is on the door handle when the voice stops him again. "How's Harry? Recovered yet?"

John freezes. Surely he wouldn't have mentioned Harry to anyone involved that night-would he? He'd been absolutely knackered by the end of it, but...

The voice drones on, raspy but smug. "Pub's a funny place to go to escape an alcoholic sibling, but apparently drink's quite the family weakness; you might want to watch that, the next time you're home between deployments. You're better off with the gambling habit, probably, even if you can't afford it."

"How...?" John's hands are fists, his mouth is dry. This Holmes bloke isn't just strange, he's unreal. It's making the back of his neck prickle. "Your brother, the one with the suit. He had me investigated?"

"Oh, very likely. Not that he'd need to; it's all right there." The man in the bed rattles off something about John's phone, his hands, his choice of pub, the patterns of wear on his boots, and his blood alcohol level and corresponding reaction time after three drinks consumed over a period of two and three-quarters hours-though the whisky had been somewhat watered down, terrible bar staff, notorious for it...

John takes another step or two closer to the very strange stranger's performance (for that's what it is, clearly) without even meaning to, as if he's being literally reeled in. "That's...all right, that's rather brilliant," he has to admit, when the flow of words seems temporarily stemmed. "Impressive. Bravo. Not an idiot after all, then. Just a _waste_."

The cold eyes snap. "Better be heading off, hadn't you? You don't want to miss your flight." He turns his face away again and just...shuts down, as if he's used up all his energy reserves for the day. Probably he has. John flicks an involuntary glance at his monitor again and watches his vitals drop back down to baseline levels.

He thinks about walking out, shrugging it all off, the whole weird episode.

"How did you know I was on my way to- Oh, never mind. I've got a bit of time, actually," he says at last, and pulls up one of the hard plastic chairs that seem designed to punish hospital visitors for daring to hang about any longer than absolutely necessary. "Your turn. What were you doing in a place like that on Christmas Eve? Bit seedy for the likes of you, isn't it? Expensive suit, expensive drug habit-surely with a brain like yours you could think of a more interesting way to rebel?"

Holmes appears to struggle with his desire not to give John the satisfaction of an answer. In the end, his need to correct John wins out. "Not rebelling," he says shortly. "It's a useful place to gather information, information of a certain sort. You wouldn't understand."

"On _Christmas Eve_," John repeats, leaning forward a bit, elbows on his knees. "You must really hate that brother of yours. And what good would any sort of information do you if you're dead of an overdose, anyway?"

Another painful-looking struggle. He just can't let it go, though. "It wasn't intentional," Holmes snaps. "A miscalculation, that's all."

John's eyebrows go up. "Really? Brilliant fellow like you?"

"Oh, why are you still here? I hope you don't attempt to psychoanalyse all your patients this way, Dr. Watson. You're shockingly bad at it."

"I don't need to," John says steadily. "My patients are generally trying as hard as they can _not_ to get killed. Bit sickening to see someone with everything you've got going for them throw it all away, that's all."

Holmes closes his eyes. He's as pale as the pillow. Paler. "Please leave," he says, and this time John does.

He gets as far as the lifts, where he stands with his head bowed for several minutes, then purses his mouth, exhales, and walks back down to the corridor, dropping his holdall at the unresponsive phone-goddess's feet before entering the unmarked room again without knocking. Holmes hasn't moved.

"I'm sorry," John says, standing at attention just inside the door. "I don't know anything about your life, you're quite right about that, and I apologise. You threw me, I suppose, with your...what you said. Anyway. I hope things improve for you."

The man doesn't look over at him, doesn't open his eyes, just gives a short, bitter-sounding laugh and flicks his fingers dismissively at him. It ought to piss John right off, but it doesn't. He feels sorry for him, suddenly, and guilty, too. Surely he's been around enough damaged young men and women to recognise that their reactions to pain and fear and forced immobility are often anything but reasonable.

"Do you need anything?" John asks. "A drink, or-the non-alcoholic kind, I mean."

No reaction, not even the ghost of a smile. John glances around the room and realises what's odd about it, apart from the fact that it's a private room: no flowers. He hadn't noticed at first because he's not used to seeing them in a military hospital, but it's a bit odd for a civilian, isn't it? In fact, there are no personal effects of any kind at all in the room, as far as he can see.

He draws in a breath to ask about it, but changes his mind and lets it out in a sigh instead. Impolite to ask, surely. Anyway, Holmes appears to have fallen asleep now, and from the stats on the monitor, John guesses he's not faking.

On impulse, he goes over to the bedside table and scribbles his email address on the pad of paper sitting there before he leaves-for good, this time. John picks up his bag again, glances curiously at the young woman stationed outside the hospital room, shakes his head, and takes the lift down to catch a cab to the barracks.

Three hours later he's on a flight to Kabul. Forty-eight hours after that he's in the field again, up to his elbows in gore, and the whole incident already seems like a strange, half-remembered dream.

_- Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, 8 August, 2005_

**Bit of a strange question for you-none of my usual sources available at the moment. How long does it take for surgical scar tissue to fade completely from pink to white? Does the process continue in the postmortem state, and if so, for how long?**

**-Sherlock Holmes**

John blinks at the computer screen in total confusion for a long time before he can make any sense of the message or remember where he's heard the name before. It's a memorable enough name, but he hasn't slept for more than two hours at a stretch all week, and the message is so bizarre that he nearly dismisses it as spam, a hoax, a practical joke.

When it comes to him, he makes a startled "huh!" sound out loud. Christmas in London seems light-years away. Also, it is without a doubt one of the strangest questions he's ever been asked a propos of nothing, via email or otherwise. He looks up at the date on the message. It's nearly two weeks old.

Finally he types back:

**Yes, very strange question. Er...depends on a lot of factors, age, skin tone, epidermal elasticity, general health of the patient. Anywhere from nine months to three years, I'd say offhand. I don't know about postmortem. Corpses not my area if I can possibly help it. Sorry I don't have a more useful answer. Curious to know why you ask?**

He hesitates for quite a while before adding,

**I'm surprised (but not displeased) to hear from you after all this time. How are things going these days?**

**-John Watson**

**PS - Sorry for the late response, hope it wasn't a time-sensitive question. I don't usually check my email all that often these days.**

He clicks Send before he has a chance to have second thoughts, then instantly decides he sounds incredibly fatuous and wishes he hadn't.

New message from TheScienceOfDeduction, the screen tells him, while he's reading the exchange over for the third time, and his eyebrows go up.

**Very time-sensitive. No matter. Ancient history. If you're still at the computer, though, I've got another one for you: How many minutes/hours can a cleanly severed digit be kept before it can no longer be reattached?**

**-SH**

John laughs in delighted surprise.

**I'd say up to 8 hours, if it's been kept on ice. Not one of yours, I trust?**

**What is it that you do, anyway?**

He doesn't get a reply before his turn at the computer is up, but he makes a point of checking his email again the next afternoon.

**Not mine, no. As for what I do...it's a bit complicated. Asking to be polite, or really want to know?**

**-SH**

John's had two or three beers in the mess (mates he hadn't caught up with in a while, he's not on duty, it is not a "family weakness") so he responds incautiously,

**Stop being so mysterious and tell me everything, you wanker.**

He waits, staring at the screen and drumming his fingers on the edge of the keyboard for what seems like a long time. Just as he's about to give up and log off, the new message signal blinks on with a soft chime, and he finds himself grinning like a fool.

_[ Open message? ]_

John moves the cursor and clicks _Yes._


	2. The Correspondence

In the autumn of 2005, Captain John Watson of the RAMC becomes the world's first part-time long-distance consulting detective's assistant on the internet.

It's only possible because he's being stationed at the new facilities at Helmand while they get things underway there and work out the bugs. For the first time in years, John not only has regular access to his email but a reason to check it. Sherlock has, for reasons unknown, suddenly taken to telling him long stories about his efforts to get his consulting business off the ground. He's effusive, expansive, and John quickly gets the sense he doesn't have a lot of people to talk to about it, or talk to at all. Even on base he can't get online to check his email every day, but whenever he does he gets a jolt of excitement to find that there's at least one new message from _sholmes .uk_, and sometimes four or five.

John responds with honest admiration, with answers to medical questions when he can, with questions of his own about the finer points of some of the cases. He's always secretly loved murder mysteries.

They don't discuss their personal lives at all in these emails. Not a word.

**Why me?** John asks, late one night in a reckless and unguarded moment.

**You have an appreciation for unorthodox methods, **Sherlock responds almost at once, as if he's thought it over himself and has an answer at the ready. **Using snow as a cooling agent to slow the cardiopulmonary system mid-event? Impressively risky.**

**Combat medicine forces you think on your feet,** John types back. **It was probably very stupid of me.** He stares at the blinking cursor for a while, decides that he might not be given an in like this again, and adds, **Still using?**

He doesn't really expect an answer, but he gets one: **Not much. Still gambling?**

John shuts down the window and walks away from the computer, even though he knows that failing to answer the question is an answer of its own. He is, in fact, gambling quite a bit these days-not for seriously high stakes, but enough to cut into his pay. It's hard to adjust to not being out in the field anymore. He agrees with his CO that he'd needed a break from combat duty, and this is a promotion, really. He should feel honored.

Sherlock doesn't ask many questions or have much to say about John's work, and that's fine. Then there's the day when he gets online to find a long string of emails with questions about neurotoxins, antivenoms, subcutaneous versus intravenous delivery methods, and he answers the last one with a cursory **not really sure about this one, sorry.** Sherlock is online to receive it and respond instantly, of course; Sherlock is apparently constantly online.

**Come on, this is first-year medical school stuff, John, you can do better than that. I could Google for this.**

**Why don't you, then?** John answers quickly. He squinches his eyes shut after he's sent it and rubs his temples.

**Sorry,** he types, in his next message. **Bad day. They brought a little girl in, a local, third-degree burns over 65% of her body. I've seen worse of course, but not with children.**

There's a response after what seems to John like an uncharacteristically long pause. **That would be difficult, I imagine.**

You can't imagine, John thinks angrily, you spoiled civilian prat, and then he closes his eyes again and breathes for a while before answering. **Yes, it was. Almost hope she doesn't survive; her parents and brother were killed in the explosion. Anyway. Do you still need an answer about the anti-venom?**

**No, never mind, it's merely hypothetical,** Sherlock replies. **I tend to forget where you are sometimes. I apologise.**

When he's less tired, John reads the email again and decides he'd better save that one for posterity.

_- 17 December, 2007 _

**Hi, Sherlock. Haven't heard from you in a while. No interesting cases lately?**

**I'll be back in London later this week, actually. My sister's getting married. I haven't met the girl yet, it's all a bit weird and sudden, but Harry seems really happy when I've talked to her recently. And sober, which is unusual, for her. We'll see how long it lasts.**

**(I shouldn't be such a pessimist. Maybe she's actually turning her life around this time. Maybe it can just happen like that, maybe all it takes is meeting the right**

John stops, leans back in his chair, and looks at the ceiling for a while. Then, briskly, he shakes his head and deletes the entire last paragraph, finishing off with:

**Anyway, yeah, I'm in town through New Year's on the off chance you're around and want to meet up for a drink. Promise not to push you down in the snow this time.**  
**-JW**

There's no reply. Not before he leaves for his plane, and not while he's in London. He finds excuses to check his email so often that Harry makes comment before he finally gives up and decides he's been a complete idiot.

_- 28 March, 2008 _

**Sorry for the long silence. Rehab. Fine now. In your opinion, could an average-sized man in fair physical condition spear another man through the chest and pin him to the wall with a single blow from an antique whaling harpoon? It's for a case.**  
**-SH**

**Good lord, I should hope it's for a case. Wait, what, rehab? Sorry to hear it-what happened?**  
**-JW**

**Immaterial. Your opinion on the harpoon?**  
**-SH**

**Possibly. How antique? It would have to be extremely sharp. And I don't consider it immaterial. I'd very much like to know what happened. The wedding was fine and I enjoyed my time in London, by the way, thanks for asking.**  
**-JW**

**You're angry. That's dull of you. Never mind; I'll do my own looking into the matter.**  
**-SH**

John writes several responses of varying lengths and levels of sarcasm, but manages not to send any of them. He tries to put it out of his head. He has mates on base, plenty of them. He's well-liked. (Losing at poker makes you well-liked. At least it does when you pay your debts, which he always does.) He hadn't heard from Sherlock in so long he'd nearly given up on him-so why dwell on the man now?

_- 4 April, 2008 _

**Fine, you win. No personal stuff, got it. Tell me about the whaling harpoon. What happened?**  
**-JW**

**I'm not trying to be secretive, John. It bores me to discuss it, that's all. Every few years my brother likes to assert his nominal authority over me by having me kidnapped and packing me off to a private rehabilitation clinic in some remote location or other. The surroundings are always stultifying and their methods laughable. It's occasionally useful for me to get away from London for a few weeks or months, however.**

**I managed to obtain a pig carcass to test the harpoon theory and determined that it could be driven entirely through the body and into a wall, but only by a determined murderer with considerable upper body strength. The prime suspect in the case was exonerated.**

**Much more interesting than the story of a brilliant idiot with a cocaine habit, no?**  
**-SH**

**Mmm...I'd say equally interesting.**  
**Did you overdose again?**  
**-JW**

**Just a bit.**  
**-SH**

_- 8 April, 2008 _

**I just don'tknow wjy you feel like you neeed to fuck yourself up, is the thing. Brain like yours. You'r amazing and it's sucvh a stupid waste. Whhy?**  
**-J**

**Same reason you needed to drink seven shots of...whisky, I'll assume? before you typed this message. Consciousness hurts, when you know too much.**  
**-SH**

_- 9 April, 2008_

**How's the hangover?**  
**-SH**

**Oh god. Shut up. IGNORE THAT LAST EMAIL.**  
**-JW**

**What, you don't think I'm amazing?**  
**-SH**

**Well. I do, actually, yes. You know you are.**  
**Any new cases on the horizon?**  
**-JW**

It's the closest they've got to flirting-not very close, but it makes John go a bit tingly, waiting for Sherlock's next message.

Which is entirely case-related, of course. There's really no reason to think Sherlock would ever think of him that way, anyway...except that, as a career soldier, John's had plenty of experience in carrying on long-distance flirtations, and something about this feels similarly charged. Sometimes. Sort of.

Sherlock's emails sometimes refer to "an acquaintance" of his on the police force who allows him access to crime scenes on occasion, an acquaintance who's upgraded to "colleague" at some point that spring and, once or twice, "friend." No names, ever, not even any pronouns, just "my friend at the Yard," and John's slightly ashamed of how much time he spends trying to puzzle out whether Sherlock means "friend" or "fuck-buddy."

Not that John should care. He's got a few of those himself. He's simply curious, that's all; for some reason, everything about Sherlock seems to make John more and more curious. It's as if the longer their correspondence lasts, the less well John seems to know him.

In June, the friend at the yard gets a name: Lestrade. John googles, and gets some newspaper articles referencing a Detective Inspector G. Lestrade. No photos, no first name. Gus? Gertrude?

John finally asks about it one night.

**This friend at the Yard. Are you two...involved? He (she?) seems to come up a lot lately.**  
**Just wondering.**  
**-JW**

**He. No. God, you must be bored to ask a question like that. Are you sober at the moment? Here, I'm attaching some photos from a double murder in Swindon yesterday; take a look, if you're not too wrecked. Classified, obviously.**  
**-SH**

**Mostly sober. Sorry. Good lord, that looks...labor-intensive. At least three different sorts of cutting implements were used, I'd say? What else am I meant to be looking for?**  
**-JW**

John is, in fact, rather bored. He's settled into a routine at the field hospital: triage shifts, surgical shifts, mess hall, poker game with the usual suspects. Grey concrete block and an endless procession of horribly damaged bodies to be dealt with. Cut-and-paste banter, howls of pain, gallows humour. Losing a lot of money at cards is one of the things that will break him through blankness into feeling something. Emails from Sherlock are another.

They're back to communicating nearly every day now, and it's intoxicating. Either there's a great deal of crime going on in London this summer, or Sherlock is finally gaining the kind of name he'd hoped for. People are actually beginning to seek him out with unusual cases now and then, although most of it, Sherlock complains, is the usual cheating-partner, missing-pet melodrama: dull as toast.

**Know what you mean,** John tells him. **Thinking about requesting an active tour again.**

There's a few days' delay before John receives an answer to that one. It says simply,

**I wish you wouldn't.**  
**-SH**

John's heart gives a ridiculous leap when he reads it, and he stares at the words for far too long, telling himself he's a complete fool. He's useful to Sherlock, that's all. Like this poor Lestrade sap, no doubt, who John's decided to envision as sixtyish and balding, with a large spare tyre overhanging his brown polyester trousers.

John puts off requesting reassignment. July 2008 is a bloody month in Afghanistan, with record-breaking numbers of British soldiers dead and injured, and between that and the increasing demands of Sherlock's emails, John doesn't come up for air for most of the summer. There's nothing but blood and bone and scalpel, and photos and descriptions of more of the same. Should he be more worried, John wonders briefly in the moments after his head hits the pillow at odd hours, that he doesn't find this life at all disturbing? His sleep is dreamless and restorative. He doesn't have time to analyze this.

In late August, Harry's marriage ends. She sends John a lot of desperately unhappy, self-flagellating messages, and in a moment of weakness he agrees to come and stay with her during his upcoming mandatory leave.

John doesn't tell Sherlock he's coming back to London, this time. Sherlock deduces it.

He turns up on Harry's doorstep, pounding on the door to her flat at one in the morning, and John is instantly up off the sofa and opening the latches before he's fully awake, blinking in confusion at the man standing there.

"Hello, John," he says. "Ready for a bit of action?"

John can only gape. "You, you're... What are you doing here?" He feels his mouth twist in what must be a really dopey-looking grin. "How did you...?"

"Child's play," Sherlock says, pushing past him into the room and giving everything a once-over. "You were due a leave, you've mentioned your sister no less than three times in the past months, and your email time stamps suddenly changed over to Greenwich Mean six days ago. If you ask me how I knew where she lived, I'm ending our association on the spot. There's a body on the riverbank not ten minutes from here. Cab's waiting downstairs; are you coming along to see it or not?"

"Am I...give me a minute, just a minute," John says, still wondering how this can possibly not be a dream. "You're _here_."

Sherlock sighs. "Trousers would be advisable," he says, plucking John's up from the chair where he left them neatly folded an hour ago, and offers them to him. John gives a disbelieving laugh and takes them, shedding his pyjama bottoms quickly and putting them on. Sherlock doesn't make any pretense of glancing away.

"You look different than I remembered," John offers, but Sherlock doesn't take the bait.

"Pleasantries later," he says. "Let's go."

John scribbles a note for Harry and sticks it to the fridge-he's not sure she'll even miss him, the visit hasn't been going well at all, but just in case-grabs the spare keys, and follows Sherlock out of the flat. He stops in the well-lit outer corridor and grabs Sherlock by the sleeve.

"One thing, first," he says, and seizes Sherlock's chin before he can react, turning his face toward the light and frowning at him critically. Sherlock starts to jerk away, then relaxes when he realises what John is looking for.

"Ah," he says. "Quite. No, I'm clean at the moment, have been since January, as a matter of fact. I generally don't seek out altered mental states unless I'm having trouble finding other things to keep my mind occupied, and that hasn't been an issue just lately. Come on, John- there's only so long Lestrade can hold his forensics team at bay with a pointy stick, and I need to see this body before they muck it all up beyond repair. Are you with me or not?"

"Well, with you, I suppose," John says, and follows Sherlock down the stairs and into thirty-seven hours of complete insanity. There's a body on the riverbank that's been poisoned, not drowned; there are six or seven mad dashes back and forth across London in cabs and on foot to various obscure locations where they're surely not allowed to be; there's a freezing half-hour in the cold room of a morgue; a stakeout on a park bench where John manages to fall asleep for twenty minutes; nothing whatsoever to eat or drink except for half a cup of cold coffee and three very stale chocolate biscuits; and finally, a footrace through an unused Underground tunnel and a bit of hand-to-hand combat that ends with John sitting on the suspect's chest and trying not to spatter blood directly into the man's face while Sherlock triumphantly shouts for the Met team down the dark echoing caverns under London.

"That was...that was..." John gasps, when the murder suspect has been taken away and Sherlock has pulled him clear of the swarm of police to lean against the damp filthy concrete a few yards off and collect himself.

"Wasn't it?" Sherlock smirks, then scowls and fishes in an inside coat pocket until he produces a nearly-clean cotton handkerchief, which he hands to John. "You're still bleeding."

John presses the cloth gingerly to the cut under his eye. "Face wounds always look worse than they are," he says automatically. "I wouldn't mind getting cleaned up, though. Do we need to hang about here?"

"No," Sherlock says, and takes him firmly by the elbow, guiding him through the tunnel and up the stairs and into the blinding late-day sun, where a cab stops for them right away, by some miracle or sorcery. John wouldn't put anything past Sherlock at this point.

"Amazing," he murmurs, and leans his head back against the leather seat, letting his eyes close for what feels like just a moment before Sherlock is tugging at his elbow again.

"Come on, we're here," he says impatiently.

"Where?" John shakes his head, dazed, and blood drops spatter. "I can't see Harry like this. She'll go spare." He thinks guiltily of the two texts he'd managed to send her from the backs of speeding cabs, and promises himself he'll phone her the minute the world quits spinning quite so hectically.

"My place," Sherlock says. "It's a bit horrible. It's got running water, though. Usually."

The flat is more than a bit horrible, but there's running water, and it's even hot, eventually, if brownish. Sherlock lets John have first go at the mildewy shower, and he peels off his clothes and stands blissfully under the trickle, half-hypnotised by the swirls of blood and sluiced-off tunnel filth disappearing down the drain.

There's an impatient knock while John is still standing in front of the mirror with a towel around his waist, dabbing antiseptic cream at the cut on his face. Sherlock doesn't quite wait for him to finish saying "Come in," before entering.

"My turn," he says, already turning the water back on and unbuttoning his shirt.

"Almost done here," John says, moving his mouth as little as possible so that the blood won't well up again as he improvises a few butterfly stitches from the adhesive tape he's found in the cabinet, and Sherlock drifts closer to come and look over his shoulder at John's reflection. John sucks in his stomach and pulls himself up taller reflexively, but Sherlock's eyes (he watches them in the mirror) linger admiringly on the neat line of bandaging, giving only a cursory glance to his bare torso.

"Clean clothes in the bureau, help yourself," Sherlock tells him finally, and sheds his shirt and trousers unselfconsciously before stepping into the shower. Long white flanks, thin ropy arms, dirt-streaked. John finishes off the butterflies before the mirror can begin to steam up again and leaves the room.

Out of habit and training he seeks out fuel before rest. He pads into the kitchen in his damp towel and eventually comes up with half a stale baguette and a carton of yoghurt that's only a day or two past its expiration date. Sherlock doesn't keep much of a pantry. The whole place, he thinks, looking around muzzily, isn't all all what he'd expected-less posh, more post-graduate hovel.

After wolfing the food, John wanders into the dusty bedroom and finds a pair of loose navy-blue boxers to put on, then flops face-down onto the unmade bed before getting any further.

He wakes again a few minutes later when Sherlock throws himself down next to him with a heavy sigh. "Yes, I am wearing pants," Sherlock says, reading John's startled look. He props himself up on one elbow and studies John frankly, and John wonders what Sherlock's seeing now-his entire sexual history? the source of every nick and blemish?-but decides he doesn't much care; John has a good and useful body, he knows, and he's rather proud of it and of what it can do, on the whole.

"Are you up for anything?" Sherlock asks, sounding more curious and amused than seductive, but the low pitch of his voice sends a jolt of heat through John's lower belly. _Junkie_, John thinks, _Eccentric crime-obsessed junkie,_ and also _civilian, oh bloody christ, _but he's been wondering about this for a long time now, and he's too exhausted not to give in.

"Yeah, suppose I am," John says, and reaches up to run the backs of his fingers up and down Sherlock's bare, slightly damp side. Sherlock closes his eyes and shivers.

It's a really terrible idea. They're both jacked up on adrenalin and John has reached an almost dreamlike state of tiredness and there's no way this will work in any sense. The kissing is nice, though: Sherlock's warm, full lips on his suddenly, gently tasting him, and Sherlock's hands finding just the right places to stroke and press and cup.

John rolls over on top of him and pins him to the bed, taking him by surprise-he can see it in Sherlock's face. God, yes, that's good, he thinks. Surprising Sherlock Holmes. "Can I suck you off?" he asks, panting a little with excitement, and Sherlock bites his lip and makes a whimpering noise in his throat, nodding blindly. "Good, all right," John says, and kisses him again, then moves down his body, licking and biting here and there, raising trails of gooseflesh against Sherlock's clean flushed skin.

"You're much less of an idiot in person than you are online," Sherlock murmurs when they're through, rubbing his fingers through the short hairs on the back of John's neck.

"I don't know how to take that," John says into Sherlock's sharp hip, making him squirm. "Er...thanks?"

"I never give compliments," Sherlock assures him. "Come up here. I need you here," and John's just awake enough to crawl back up the bed and into his arms before passing out.

He wakes to sudden coldness, and finds Sherlock standing next to the door, buttoning his shirt with one hand and texting with the other. "Have to go," Sherlock says, when he sees John lift his head from the pillow inquiringly. "Lestrade. You can stay. Oh, you're off again in the morning, though, aren't you? Well. I'll be in touch. It was good seeing you. Safe travels and all that." He's out of the room before John can think of anything to say in protest or response, and then the front door to the flat slams behind him, leaving a hollow silence that prevents him from falling back asleep.

_- 10 October, 2008 _

**Dear Dr Watson, (sorry, not sure of your correct rank)**

**We met briefly on the evening of 30 August in connection with the arrest of one Otto Norton. I'm clearing up some paperwork and am unable to find an official police statement on record regarding your involvement in Mr. Norton's capture. I am aware of your circumstances, but is there a day and time I could contact you for a taped phone interview?**

**Sincerely,**  
**Detective Inspector G. Lestrade**  
**Metropolitan Police Authority**

John responds promptly to this email with a date, time, and phone number where he can be reached. He badly wants to append a _PS, Seen Sherlock lately? He hasn't been answering his email. Give him my regards if you run into him,_ but in the end his pride just won't allow it. He did in fact meet Lestrade on the evening of 30 August. He isn't sixtyish and balding with a spare tyre. Not at all. He does wear a wedding ring, at least, for whatever that's worth.

Anyway, John's basically got the picture after six weeks and three unanswered emails. No, two. He hadn't sent the third one, thank christ.

_- 7 November, 2008 _

**How many days could an adult human male survive in a waterless environment by drinking his own urine?**  
**SH**

- _10 November, 2008_

**Sulking or busy?**  
**SH**

_- 11 November, 2008 _

**John?**  
**SH**

_- 13 November, 2008 _

**If this is about what happened between us when you were last in London, I apologise. I tend to panic when confronted with the implications of interactions of that sort. I would appreciate the favour of a reply so that I'll know you haven't been killed by an IED, although I imagine I would have read about it in the newspaper if you had.**  
**SH**

_- 18 November, 2008 _

**Sorry. Not dead. Internet access infrequent. I'm on a tour of active duty for the next eleven months, providing medical support on convoys in Kandahar Province. Probably won't be able to answer emails very promptly for a while.**  
**Not a problem about what happened in London. It was nice.**  
**John**

**Oh, and as to your other question. No more than 24 hours depending on previous hydration levels of the man in question, and could result in permanent kidney damage. Inadvisable. Hope you didn't resort to self-experimentation while waiting for an answer.**  
**J**

There's a slight sort of mean satisfaction in getting to respond to Sherlock's long-overdue attempts at communication so tersely, but it doesn't quite break the surface of John's combat-zone-induced, bone-deep, thoroughly exhausted calm. It's more than a relief to be back in the desert. He'd been useful at Helmand, but this feels more like something he was made to do: running under clear skies, breathing grit, cheating death. And it's shockingly good to have a weapon in hand again.

He'd send Sherlock a message to thank him, but Sherlock might take it wrongly, he decides. Best to let the correspondence slide, interesting as it had been. It had been nice, that time in London, anyway.

And it wasn't as if, realistically, it could ever have been anything more, could it?


	3. The Damage Done

For the remainder of his tour as a combat medic in Kandahar Province, John receives only two emails from Sherlock, but they're both rather memorable ones.

- _24 December 2008 _

**think i may have miscaalculated again. probablt not faatal but just incase my appppologiesfor any distress  
sh**

John is spending the holiday at a makeshift canvas-roofed combat hospital somewhere in Panjwayi, which has the luxury of occasional internet and phone access. He reads the message late Christmas morning and his mouth goes sand-dry. Ludicrously, his hand twitches toward his gun first, as if he's in danger himself, as if there's something he can do.

**Not funny, Sherlock. Where are you?  
JW**

**Fucking answer me, you idiot.  
J**

**Right, I'm phoning your brother, pretty sure I have his contact info somewhere.**

He doesn't, actually-can't even remember the posh bastard's name. The only phone number he can find in connection with Sherlock is that damned detective inspector's, and John's not even sure if it's a private line or a police number. He dials it anyway.

"Five-thirty on Christmas morning," says a raspy, sleepy voice 3500 miles away. "This ought to be good."

- _26 December 2008 _

**He's fine, more or less. Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. Found him in the Montague Street flat as you suggested, off his head and sick as a dog. Dragged him back to my place till he can get cleaned up and on his feet again. Will send you the bill for my ruined rug and spoiled xmas dinner. (Joke. No worries. Nothing better to do anyway since my ex has the kids for the holiday.)**

**If he's too embarrassed to say thanks then I'll say it for him. Thanks. You're a better friend than he deserves. Hope it's going all right for you out there.**

**Happy New Year to you and yours and the troops,  
(Detective Inspector) G. Lestrade**

_- 27 December 2008 _

**Thanks for letting me know. Happy New Year to you, too.  
John Watson**

John doesn't trust himself to say anything else, or to try and get in touch with Sherlock directly. There's no time, anyway, and no space in his brain for it these days. Fucking addicts, he thinks to himself, and goes to clean his weapon again.

In April 2009, John gets a manila envelope in the post. From the looks of it, it's been to every province and district in the country and been opened up, rifled through, and re-sealed at each stop along the way. It contains a collection of newspaper clippings, most but not all from London papers, one in Spanish and one in Arabic. There's no note attached-lost, or never included to begin with, more likely.

He fires off a quick email to Sherlock:

**Nice work. Glad to see you've been keeping busy. I especially like the one where the snake turned out to be the murder weapon.  
JW**

The reply is sent several days later.

**Sensationalised media account. He was injecting his victims with the venom, in fact, but that makes for a much less showy story. It does help to stay busy as much as possible, I find. Not always possible. Will you be back when your tour ends?  
SH**

John doesn't answer. First because he doesn't get the message for over a fortnight, then because he's not sure what to say, and then because it's been so long that he's fairly sure Sherlock no longer cares about his reply. If he ever did in the first place. If he wasn't just asking to be polite.

Sherlock doesn't do anything just to be polite, though, he remembers.

So he plans to answer the email, the next time it's feasible to do so. He composes a number of responses in his head, and maybe he'll even get round to typing one of them out and sending it, eventually, whenever he's on base again. Right after the Maywand operation, probably.

_- 27 July 2009 _

He's only a few feet away from the open door of the Chinook when the first blast clips him in the back of the leg, throwing him to his knees. The second one shoves him flat to the ground, face in the dust while he waits for the third. Please, God, let-

_- 31 July 2009 _

He isn't killed. Not quite. Consciousness is hard to come by and excruciating to maintain, but he's almost certain he's not been killed. Instead he's still being killed, the bullets tearing into his flesh over and over and over and over again in an endless repeating time loop.

Then he's sedated more heavily again, which is like death. It's too bad. There was something he meant to do. There was everything he meant to do, but it dwindles in the distance.

_- Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham, 28 August 2009 _

The second operation on his shoulder goes badly, though he won't realise how badly for some time. Pumped full of drugs and buzzing with fever, John lies in bed and hallucinates entire landscapes composed of pulped and screaming bloody things that used to be human, crunching under his feet. He can't help them, can't even silence them. His arms end at the wrist in mutilated stumps, bright bone shards protruding.

There are respites, too, kinder scenery from time to time when the morphine level peaks. Cool water and gentle hands. Sherlock is there, one of these times, standing by his bed looking crisp and restless.

"I meant to write you," John tells him. "I would have."

"Did you? I wondered."

"You're not actually here, are you?" John asks, after a bit.

"Definitely not," Sherlock assures him. He looks subtly different from the way John generally sees him in his head, and John closes his eyes, not wanting to see Sherlock's face melt off or whatever his brain has planned for him, but it doesn't happen. When he looks again, Sherlock has simply vanished, leaving nothing behind, not a thread or a lingering scent or the memory of a ghost-touch. Nothing.

_- 8 October 2009 _

The physio has been grueling and the psych counseling is frankly offensive, but John endures it all with determinedly cheerful stoicism until the day he gets called in for a meeting that he believes will be about his reassignment but turns out to be instead about his medical discharge and pension plan. It's like being shot all over again. Worse, because he feels the shattering impact of every word, without the mercy of ever losing consciousness. He begins to argue-how could he not argue?-but stops when the uniformed men across the table begin exchanging significant looks.

"There are psychological issues at play here as well," one of them says. "We have notes here in your file, dating back to-"

"Whose notes? Notes on what?" John demands, reaching across the table in blind outrage.

The commander slides the brown folder out of his reach and raises his eyebrows. "You're proving our point here, you do realise. Why don't you take some time and-"

"No, got it, thanks," John says, pushing back his chair and grabbing for the cane. "I'll read through the paperwork. I'll have plenty of time, apparently. Good morning."

His hand is shaking so violently that he drops the sheaf of papers he's been given. He can't stoop to pick them up. He can't stop moving, or he'll go down.

- _12 October 2009 _

**I need a medical opinion on the amount of shaving foam an adult male could consume without permanent damage or fatality resulting. Please respond soon if possible.  
-SH**

John ignores the message.

_- 14 October 2009 _

**Will need to engage self as a test subject in lieu of a response on the shaving cream question. Please respond.  
-SH**

_- 15 October 2009 _

**I'm disappointed, John. I thought you cared. All right, I'll have to come at the problem from a different angle, then.  
-SH**

The next day, Sherlock turns up at the ambulatory ward during afternoon visiting hours. When the nurse on duty notifies him, John thinks of refusing to see him, but decides it will be easier to get this over with here and now.

Sherlock walks in as if he owns the place, wearing a dramatic-looking black coat that John hasn't seen before. He looks strikingly out of place. And striking, period. John watches him look carefully at every object in his curtained-off section of the ward and then finally at John himself. John steels himself and just about manages not to flinch.

"Oh, I see," Sherlock says softly. "Well. That's excellent news, isn't it? You're no longer in danger of being horribly killed at any moment, and I can make good use of you in London."

John surprises himself with a very rusty-sounding laugh. "I'm of no use to anyone, I'm afraid," he says. "How did you know I was here?"

"I have connections who kept me informed of your whereabouts," Sherlock tells him. "I've been here before," he adds. "Twice, in fact. You seemed partially lucid the second time; I thought you might have remembered."

John had suspected it might not have been a hallucination. The fact that there was another time is a bit of a shock, though, along with the news that there are apparently shadowy government presences keeping tabs on his movements-presences in three-piece suits, no doubt.

He thinks about Sherlock watching him when he was in god-knows-what state, observing him. He should be moved, or angry, creeped-out, something. He should be curious about why Sherlock had bothered coming all the way to Birmingham more than once, but John isn't curious. He isn't anything.

"Come round and see me in London," he says, because it's an easy way to extricate himself from awkward hospital visits, he's found. "I'm getting out of here in a few days. Staying with Harry for a bit until I find my feet. I'll get in touch."

"No, you won't," Sherlock says, studying him keenly.

"Would you-" John starts to snap. Stop looking at me, he wants to say.

"Yes?" Sherlock asks.

"Nothing." John blinks up at him, smiling politely, swallowing it down. "Never mind. Bit tired. Thanks for coming, I'm really very touched that you'd think of me."

"Hm. Unpleasant being on the other side of the hospital bed, isn't it? And you've never answered my shaving foam question yet."

"Quite tired actually," John says, settling back against the pillow. "Sorry."

"I didn't make it up, if that's what you think," Sherlock continues, pacing up and down the length of the tiny cubicle now. "Well, all right, I did make it up, but it was based on a query I used to solve a case of sorts when I was only ten years old. A knowledge of all the available brands of shaving foam and their unique chemical properties is absolutely essential, I've found, and it's incredibly difficult because the market is constantly changing. I have to round them all up and run a full analytic study at least once every two years. Once a year would be better, but there are also toothpastes to keep up with, and deodorants, and let's not even get started on the variety of hair care products out there..."

John feigns sleep, his never-fail last-resort gambit for getting rid of unwanted visitors. He actually falls asleep at some point while waiting for Sherlock to shut up and take the hint.

_- 23 November 2009 _

London is cold, in every sense. It's amazing to John that such a big city can feel so sterile and dead. Amazing, too, how easily he's able to slip beneath the surface of things and disappear, after the first couple of weeks. He's a textbook case of every cautionary tale he's ever heard about post-combat psychology, which feels unbearably shameful. Even that is textbook. How can he know this and still fall into every trap the human mind can set for itself?

At least, he thinks, he doesn't have a family to fuck up. Not much of one, anyway. Harry would be Harry no matter what; he's only her latest excuse.

He's not terribly surprised that there's been no word from Sherlock. Off somewhere curled up with his habit again, probably. Or with Lestrade.

- _18 December 2009 _

It's a text message this time, not an email. At first John fails to recognise the sounds his mobile is making.

**In need of emergency medical assistance very near your flat.  
Can you come down or shall I come up?  
SH**

John's fingers are clumsy on the tiny keys.

**come up if u can, or i cn phone ambulance 4 u? what's rong?**

He waits for a reply, frowning at the tiny screen, and finally tries to ring the number the text message had come from, but gets only an automated response. Ten minutes later there's a knock on his front door.

"What are you doing here, what's going on?" John demands as Sherlock brushes past him into the room. His coat is very damp-as well it might be; it's been pissing down for the past two days. "Are you hurt? How did you even-"

Sherlock shushes him and goes to the window, holding up a hand to forestall any questions as he looks down onto the rain-washed street. John folds his arms and waits.

"Good," Sherlock says finally, turning back toward him. "Excellent. So." He looks around. "God, what a depressing little place. Why are you living here? I know they don't pay Army surgeons all that much, considering the work they do, but years of savings, no dependents...? Oh, I see, the gambling. Well, that was stupid of you. You had to have known this was always a possibility. Anyhow, you've managed to scrape together enough to buy a gun on the black market; that's good, it'll come in handy. Gun oil," he explains to John's open-mouthed expression. "It has a very distinctive odour." He smiles, clearly pleased with himself. "Were you going to offer me a cup of tea?" he suggests.

"No," John says. "What emergency medical assistance are you in need of?"

"Oh, none at all." Sherlock unwinds his scarf and shakes water droplets out of his hair. "I'm staking out a restaurant in the next street and wanted a place to get out of the wet. And I've been curious about where you're staying. I thought if I just asked to come up you might say no."

"Yeah, I would have," John says with an edge on his voice. "Not exactly the sort of flat you invite company up to, is it?"

"No, it's dreadful." Sherlock goes over to the window again. "You must have had a terrible falling-out with your sister. She was very rude when I went round."

"Yes, well, it's a small place, but the privacy's nice," John tells him pointedly.

Sherlock scoffs. "You were in the Army for how long? You don't care about privacy. You don't know what to do with it."

John opens the door to the flat and stands there, waiting.

"Aren't you going to ask me about my case?" Sherlock looks offended.

"Not in the mood to provide an audience," John tells him.

"Oh. Still too busy brooding. I see. I'd hoped you might be over that stage by now. Well, I'll leave you to it, then."

"What are you using lately, anyway?" John asks, as Sherlock finally turns to go. "Still the cocaine, or have you moved on to the really good stuff yet?"

"High on life," Sherlock says, dripping with sarcasm. "Enjoy your daytime television. I'm sure it's riveting."

John manages not to tell him to piss off as he closes the door, but it's a near thing.

_- 19 December 2009 _

**Sorry about yesterday. Bad day.  
-JW**

There's no immediate response, and after checking his email more often than usual for a few days, John begins to feel irritated. Why should he be the one to apologise, anyhow? It hadn't just been a bad day, it had been a fucking awful day. He'd been awake most of the night before, his shoulder was killing him, and he'd fallen on the front steps to the building earlier that day trying to juggle a sack of groceries along with the cane and an umbrella. All of which Sherlock might very well have deduced for himself.

- _23 December 2009 _

**You wanted sympathy? Concern?  
-SH**

**No, but the tough love routine is a bit rubbish, too.  
-JW**

- _24 December 2009_

**311 Kilburn High Road  
Come if convenient.  
-SH**

It's the address of the pub where they met five years ago. It's decidedly inconvenient, in fact, but John goes anyway, because all the alternatives are too depressing to contemplate.

Sherlock is sitting at the same end of the bar where John first saw him. He doesn't glance up when John comes in, and John is able to observe him for a few moments, staring down pensively at his drink. His hair is longer than it was a few years ago, and it suits him. He's still a weird-looking bloke, probably, but it's been quite a while since John's been able to think of him as anything but gorgeous. He almost loses his nerve and goes straight back out again, but Sherlock looks up and sees him just then, face lighting up in a surprised smile, and John squares himself to face whatever the evening may hold.

"I loathe Christmas," Sherlock says, when John wishes him a merry one.

"Yes, so I gathered." John signals to the barman for a pint. "Not trying for a repeat performance this year, I hope."

"It has become something of an annual occurrence," Sherlock admits. "Not by design, I assure you. Why didn't you contact me after the last time?"

"I...wait, what? No. You were the one who fell off the face of the planet, after- I'm sorry, I don't believe we've drunk enough to have this conversation just yet."

Sherlock's eyes travel to the mobile phone John set down on the bar when he'd entered. "You enjoy having heartfelt intoxicated conversations?"

John puts the phone back in his pocket and shakes his head. "Why am I here?" he asks himself out loud.

"Because I fascinate you." Sherlock rests his chin on one long, elegant hand and quirks a smile at him.

"Fascinate me, then," John challenges. "Go ahead."

Sherlock gives a short laugh, swallows the rest of his drink, and begins to tell him about his latest case. By the time he's through with his third pint John is listening raptly, forgetting where he is, only interrupting with the occasional question or exclamation. It's true, after all; Sherlock does fascinate him.

"These stories are bloody brilliant," John tells him. "Your life. My god. You should write it all down. Seriously."

Sherlock shrugs and makes a face. "Can't be bothered. Anyway, no one would read it if I did. People want a lot of ridiculous suspense and sensationalism. They're not interested in the facts."

"Well, someone should write them down. And _I'm_ interested." John hears the words as he says them, and his ears start to burn. "Anyway. I'll just. Be right back." He jerks his chin toward the Gents', and Sherlock nods and turns his attention to his drink.

The loos are much further away than John remembered from the last time he was here, and the cane is a lot harder to handle in a crowded pub when he's had a few. Sherlock is watching, no doubt, and it's the first time he's seen John in motion, really, since his injury. It's a long, long walk.

When he returns, Sherlock is gone.

So. No surprise there, really.

John finishes his drink mechanically, struggles into his coat, checks his phone messages (**23:03 Happy fucking christmas little brother, whereever the fcuk you are, ring me tmrw not tooo early -xxHx**), and heads out the door, looking up the street in vain for a cab.

"Where are you going?"

Sherlock is leaning against the brickwork front of the pub, smoking a cigarette with his gloves on and his collar turned up, looking...ridiculous, he's just ridiculous, he's something from a novel John read when he was a boy and dreamed up as a hallucination. Has to be. John's back in that hospital bed in Birmingham and the past five years have been a shell-shocked veteran's fever dream-even that would make more sense than Sherlock, real and in the flesh.

"Home," John says. "Thought you'd left."

Sherlock shakes his head and flicks his cigarette away. "Are you up for anything?"

John knows there should be a better, more physiologically accurate term than _heart_ _skipped a beat,_ but that's fairly descriptive of what it feels like.

"Because I've just had a text from Lestrade," Sherlock goes on. "There's been a pair of bodies found in a council garden, appears to be a fairly standard stabbing but with some unusual details he wouldn't go into. I can have a look-in if I run-it's only a few streets away from here. Care to come along?"

"Oh," John says. "No. Sorry. Can't. I'd better be getting back, anyhow." He gestures helplessly toward his cane, but Sherlock fails to notice; he's already at his mobile again, fingers flying.

"Right, another time, then," he says absently. "I'm sure it's nothing interesting, but just on the off chance- TAXI!" he shouts, as one passes by, and it halts for him like magic. He's gone while John is still stammering.

"Fuck," he says to the departing taillights. "You said run, not drive, you utter cock."

It's nearly half an hour before another empty cab comes along and he can go home.

_- 2 January 2010_

The pounding on his door wakes John from a rare night of dreamless sleep, and he lies in the dark fuming with anger, attempting to ignore the noise until he hears the scrape of something in the lock. He yanks open the door to find Sherlock kneeling in the corridor with a very professional-looking set of picks in hand.

"You weren't answering," he says to John's clearly outraged look. "You could have been lying dead on the floor in here."

"Sorry to disappoint. As you can see, though, that's not the case, so you can sod right off again."

"I wanted you to know that I was hoping to sleep with you again the other night," Sherlock says, straightening up. "I was distracted by the murders. It'd been weeks since I'd had anything decent going. Cases, not sex," he adds after a moment or two of icy silence.

John swipes a hand down his face. "All right," he says. "Let's have the rest of this conversation inside the flat. You can be the one to explain it when the neighbours phone the police."

Sherlock follows him in and shuts the door behind himself. "Not that I've had any decent sex recently, either," he adds.

"What are you on?" John demands.

"Nothing! I'm not actually a hardened drug addict, you know. Why must you keep referring to-"

"Because you've overdosed, what, three times since I've known you? Probably more? And because sober people don't _say_ the sorts of things you say."

"Such as asking you if you've found a decent card game since you've been back in London? Or is drinking with your alcoholic sister more your thing these days?"

"I'm sorry, I could have sworn you propositioned me less than a minute ago," John says.

Sherlock sits down, looking chastened. "I'm not good with propositions."

"No? You don't say."

Sherlock looks him up and down, slowly and deliberately, and John will say this for his methods: it's got his blood warmed up, one way or another.

"I'm not sleeping with you, Sherlock," he says, more quietly. "I can't even imagine why you'd want to, honestly."

Sherlock continues to look at him with an assessing sort of glint. "All right," he says. "Strip poker, then?"

John is very good at cards, but Sherlock is good at winning. Also, there's the fact that John started off with only a dressing gown, a t-shirt, boxers and socks. Sherlock loses his coat in the first round, shrugging it off and casting it aside as if it's of no value to him whatsoever. Unconcerned, shirt-sleeved, he then proceeds to take the next four hands with ease.

John knows Sherlock is peeking up at him intently over the fan of his cards while he lifts up his t-shirt and pulls it off over his head, but he doesn't hesitate. He sits back and raises his chin, waiting.

Sherlock chews his lower lip. "You could have won that last hand," he says finally.

"You wanted to see it." John is still breathing evenly, but it's a controlled effort.

"It's-"

"I know," John says quickly.

"-_lovely_," Sherlock finishes, and drops his cards face-up on the table, stretching out a hand toward the web of raised red scar tissue that covers most of John's left shoulder. "Can I touch it?"

John shuts his eyes, still working on breathing, and shakes his head.

"Can I kiss you, then?"

No and Yes are both equally impossible words, but the sound he makes when Sherlock's lips brush against his mouth, hesitant and warm, is presumably encouraging. And then, in the end, it's John who gets to his feet and leads Sherlock over to the bed a few minutes later.

His body still doesn't feel like his own. He can't help being reminded of how effortlessly he'd used it the last time he was with Sherlock, and at first he doesn't think he'll be able to go through with it.

"You can't want this," he says finally.

"I do, though," Sherlock murmurs. "Look at you. God, you were _destroyed_ when I saw you in hospital that first time."

John raises up on his elbows to look at him. "You sound excited by that."

"I prefer damaged things," Sherlock says, and traces his tongue-tip up the winding scar at John's hip. "Much, much more interesting."

John can't resist when Sherlock leaves off from his reverent gentle touches and turns rougher, taking what he can get, naked and hard and urgently thrusting against John's lower belly. Almost can't resist. He pulls himself back from the edge just in time, while Sherlock gasps and begins to shudder and convulse.

"I can't, I don't want to come," John murmurs into the hot damp skin of Sherlock's perfect throat. "Sorry, I'm just not ready to-"

"All right," Sherlock says, still panting. "That's fine, I understand." He sounds a bit puzzled, but John can't explain, even though he knows what he means: not quite ready to fall to pieces on him.

"Are you...you're not asleep, are you?" John asks a minute later, when Sherlock begins to turn heavy on top of him.

"Nearly." Sherlock yawns and flops over onto his side. "Sorry, was I digging into you? I can fall asleep in any position if I've been going long enough, and I've been up for nearly forty hours straight right now. Can I nap here? You don't mind?" He settles firmly into John's right-hand pillow as though the question is a mere formality.

"Well," John says doubtfully, but Sherlock is already deeply asleep. Perhaps it won't be a problem, John thinks. Perhaps this will be one of the good nights.

"What are you doing?" Sherlock is whispering when he wakes again. It's still dark, and John has to snap on the bedside light before he knows who he is, where he is.

"Nothing," John says, moving away from him. He'd been trying to staunch the bleeding. His hands still feel sticky with it. "You're- I'm all right, I'm fine. Sorry. Go back to sleep." He curls up and turns his back.

"You're shaking," Sherlock observes, and puts the palm of his hand to John's shoulderblade. Assessing or comforting, it's impossible to say, but the sensation is calming either way.

He's certain that Sherlock will have vanished in the morning, or that he'll reach for his phone and make quick excuses first thing while putting on his trousers, but Sherlock is still there at seven a.m., and at eight, and eight-thirty, burrowed down into the blanket and looking like he means to make a day of it. At nine, John can't stand it any longer and has to get up and throw on his dressing gown, leaning heavily on his cane to hobble to the toilet. When he comes out, Sherlock is watching him, wild-haired and bright-eyed, and John halts halfway across the room.

"Your limp," Sherlock says, his voice croaky with sleep. "It's psychosomatic."

"So they tell me." John changes direction, going over to the kitchenette to measure out coffee.

Sherlock remains where he is, watching John with apparent fascination. "Come back to bed," he suggests, and John gives him a funny look.

"I thought you tended to panic."

Sherlock frowns.

"At the implications of interactions of that kind," John reminds him.

"What? Did I say that? Oh, well that was ages ago."

"You keep disappearing on me, you know."

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "You've been a bit unavailable yourself."

"Not for the past five months, I haven't been."

"You made it clear you needed some recovery time. Anyway you're here now, and I'm here, and as I haven't got any interesting cases right now I'd very much like to spend the day in bed with you. Don't be difficult."

"Sherlock," John protests, but he's weakening.

"You've left your cane in the kitchenette," Sherlock says with a half grin.

John looks round in surprise.

"Never mind right now," Sherlock says, reaching out to draw him back down onto the bed. "Let's see what else I can make you forget."

It's unnerving to be examined and handled and hummed over like a forensics specimen, but it's better, John supposes, than trying to pretend the scars aren't there. It occurs to him, uncharitably, that it's very convenient for Sherlock to have a captive willing audience, an on-call assistant with medical expertise, and a subject for physical and emotional damage to study, all together in one package with occasional sex thrown in.

"It's convenient for you, too," Sherlock says, when John points this out to him. His mobile makes a new message sound, and he reaches over John's limp and sated body to pick it up.

"Let me guess. Lestrade?"

"N...o," Sherlock says absently, reading. "Oh," he says, glancing briefly up at John. "You're jealous of Lestrade? That's gratifying. And ridiculous. He's straight, you know. No, this is a bit of luck, actually; there's a flat I might be able to rent from a former client of mine on the cheap. Do you want to go round and look at it with me later on? It's got a second bedroom, apparently."

"You, you...you mean to look at a flat with you, as in-"

"As a flatmate," Sherlock says.

"No," John says very definitely. "Absolutely not. Out of the question. Anyway, who'd want me for a flatmate?"

"I would," Sherlock says, putting down his mobile and settling his hands possessively on John's hips again, leaning in to kiss him in the dip between his collarbones. "I always have."

FIN


End file.
